How a Former Music-Industry Exec Got this Helicopter Service Off the Ground

If you asked former Sony and Warner Music exec Rob Wiesenthal a few years ago if he’d someday run a business like Blade, he would have thought you were crazy. Today, however, he takes the business of chartered air travel very seriously.

Blade was founded in 2014 with an Uber for helicopters concept, offering chartered flights from New York City to the Hamptons, NY. Using Blade’s simple app, you can check flights and launch your own crowdsourced charter flight to places like Nantucket, Mass., and Miami.

In this video, Wiesenthal explains the business development strategy behind Blade and what it took to get this growing business off the ground.